It's that time again!

It's getting cooler here and the nights are getting longer so that means only one thing (for me) - it's time to get the telescope out!


I have always been interested in astronomy but the event that really cemented my love for it was the release of Carl Sagan's Cosmos series. As a child I had a toy telescope that was given to me by a family friend, but as you can imagine the combination of cheap optics and my lack of understanding of what made a good target led to less than spectacular results. A next door neighbor built a telescope that was mounted onto a cemented post in his yard and the views through that thing were amazing! I believe it was either a 4 inch or 6 inch Newtonian reflector and I remember seeing objects such as Jupiter and Saturn through it. Certainly, I had seen artist renderings and of photographs of those planets before but those images were nothing compared to seeing the real thing, in real life, in real time. The movement of objects across the viewfield was a reminder that yes, we are moving through space and so are they.


Looking at the moon with it was truly an awesome experience. Clearly visible were the craters and maria of the surface and the definition of the moon's features at the terminus. Viewing this stuff was staggering for a young boy, and it certainly left its impact on me.


The years rolled on and the boy became a man, albeit one without a telescope. I had taught myself to be able to pick out constellations and Venus and Mars by sight. On a good clear moonless night one is able to pick out numerous stars with an unaided eye, assuming minimum disturbances from terrestrial light sources.


I did pick up a scope. It was a small Celestron, 76mm (3 inch) Newtonian reflector. Among the more serious hobbyists it belongs to a class known as the "department store telescopes". Its small aperture combined with low quality Chinese optics ensured that it would not produce Hubble-grade images, but really it was a good scope to get started with. It did have an equatorial mount which is daunting for a newbie to use, but once you "get it", makes tracking moving objects so much easier. I still have it, although it's not been used in over a decade.


After getting that scope I decided I would investigate building my own. After all, there was (and is) a community of people who build their own scopes and I figured that if they could do it then so could I. Building a Newtonian reflector telescope is not as daunting of a task as it sounds - essentially you get a cardboard tube, two mirrors, a focuser, a vane, slap it all together and align it. Nothing to it, right?


Obviously it can be a bit difficult, but with some patience and care extremely high quality telescopes can be made at home. I wanted to make a larger aperture scope to overcome the limitations of the starter Celestron. The primary factor in choosing a telescope is the size of the aperture, and I had determined that an 8 inch scope would be a decent mix of aperture and portability. If a scope is too small then resolving power is limited, and you are less likely to use it. If it is too large then it is inconvenient to set up, and you are less likely to use it.


While shopping around for a primary mirror for an 8 inch reflector, I had a bit of sticker shock. At the time (the mid 1990s) a decent primary mirror that size was around $350. On top of that was the issue of the secondary mirror, the focuser, the vane, and oh yes, eyepieces. It was abundantly obvious that my project was getting well over budget, which was between nothing and "as little as possible".


Then I checked eBay. Lo and behold, there was a fellow in a nearby town who had an 8 inch Meade for sale, and he did not want to ship it. I rang him up, checked out the scope, and walked away $300 poorer but a nice scope richer.


He had some nice eyepieces to go with the scope, which he was selling because he was moving and didn't have the space. Also the telescope has a metal focuser instead of the cheaper plastic ones, and sports a 6x30mm spotting scope instead of the usual 5x45mm often seen on these. My research into telescope building educated me about the importance of alignment and collimation, which I did promptly after coming home with my new toy.


The views were absolutely amazing! The moon, when viewed at greater than quarter full, is simply blinding. Jupiter was no longer a grayish blob, instead it was happily showing off its cloud strata.  Saturn's rings and divisions were clearly defined. M33 (Andromeda) was not a fuzzy undefined patch of space, but rather an obvious galaxy.


We used the telescope quite frequently. That is, until two of my neighbors decided to leave their floodlights and mercury vapor "boogeyman" lights on all night long. Unfortunately for them, they were unable to discern between "astronomy" and "astrology" and since they are fundamentalist Christians they no doubt thought I was divining the future through the stars.  Quite the opposite really - I cannot see the future by looking at the stars, but I can certainly peer billions of years into the past.


Because of the local light pollution coming from my neighbors' houses the mighty Meade was placed into semi-retirement. But, guess what? The closest neighbor moved and the new residents are not nearly as photophillic. And, there is a row of trees that has grown up between me and the other neighbor, who is still there but doesn't seem to be as hell-bent on messing up my stargazing.


So last night after dinner I removed and cleaned the primary mirror. It was a bit grungy but it cleaned up nicely. I gave it a quick collimation, and we went out on the back deck to take a look around. And it was fantastic! The moon, being about three quarters full was a brilliant lunar laser but that was abated with the use of filters. The seeing was quite poor actually, owing largely to the high humidity, but we had a great time regardless.


Honestly, I am very much looking forward to the next outing... which might be tonight! I need to go check Heavens-Above and see what's coming up.